Tears of exhaustion burned behind her eyes, yet Tessa refused to stop working. The cold night wind burned her face, chilled her through to the bone, but she clutched the large washbasin in both hands and plunged it into the snow bank.
Beside her, Jonah did the same, a silent giant of a man who lifted a bucket of frozen snow and headed toward the house. He didn't look at her, but she would not wipe away the memory of his scorching kiss.
Heart hardened, Tessa followed Jonah's shadow in the moonless night, as afraid of his silence as what he may be thinking. Aye, she knew what he thought No man would want her. He even feared she was holding hopes that he would chose her for his bride.
She tried her best to ignore him. To concentrate on her work-a man's life was at stake-yet when she least expected it, there it was. Her gaze followed the sight of Jonah's strong shoulders or lingered on his hard-set mouth.
The old man's fever soared as minutes ticked by, his heart beating weak and far too fast. Sweat dripped off her own brow as she struggled up the narrow stairs and down the hall, following Jonah into the bedchamber.
The sight of his hands holding the snow-filled bucket made her heart stop, made her shamefully wonder what his touch, capable and sure and powerful, would feel like on other parts of her body.
She bowed her head, thankful Jonah refused to meet her gaze, and together they tucked snow around his father's frail body. The man murmured in his sleep, crying out in terror. The bucket tumbled from Jonah's grip and he dropped onto the stool close to the bedside, cradling the old man's hands within his.
Tessa's chest squeezed at the sight. A single candle brushed pulsing light across the back wall, leaving Jonah's profile in dark silhouette. Unafraid and solemn, he leaned close enough to his father to whisper low, comforting words. There was no mistaking the love in his voice, so rich and full.
Who knew Jonah Hunter could be so tender? So uncommon and good? She saw the tears shimmer where they fell against the quilt and knew he was grieving his father's suffering. She thought of the man in the tales, the warrior, the soldier, the leader of men, and knew that all his accomplishments paled next to this great act of loving and comforting his father.
For the first time she saw with her eyes the hero inside the man.
She left them, washbasin in hand, and hurried down the stairs, feeling insignificant next to the love Jonah had for his father. Such was a love she'd had for her mother, tending the poor ailing woman all those years when she should have been courting a man's interest, planning her wedding, and later, making babies.
Jonah Hunter was not so bad of a man. Nay, he was excellent. Arrogant and handsome and sly enough to charm the devil, but underneath his brashness, he was a man capable of loving.
The night wind burned her cheeks and hands, drafted through her skirts, and she shivered. Tessa knelt and scooped the basin full of frozen snow and dashed back to the house, scurrying through the unlit rooms and up the dark stairs.
When she burst into the room, Jonah glanced up. He looked to be nothing but shadow, but he was so much more. Substantial. Courageous. Her heart ached as she tucked the snow around the old man's side. Wordless, she turned and dashed away, fear driving her steps.
Had she done enough for Jonah's father? She did not know. Exhaustion slowed her movements and she fought it, pushed herself harder. Down the stairs, out into the snow, back up and into the room.
Up again and down again until tears filled her eyes. As the old man inched closer to death, she feared his breathing would halt entirely and she would be left with Jonah's grieving tears and the terrible sense she should have done more.
She laid her hand on the colonel's forehead. So damn hot. His breath came in rattling whispers. What more could she do? Tessa set down the basin, refused to meet Jonah's eyes, and hurried back downstairs. Perhaps another onion poultice would break apart the congestion in the old man's lungs. She would need a hot fire. Yet the kitchen was dark, and she tried twice to light a lamp in the corner. Pain burned in her back and coiled in her neck.
She thought of Jonah's quiet courage and pushed herself harder. How many bedsides had she sat beside, comforting a dying loved one when others would not? Death frightened a lot of people, but not Jonah. He sat vigil beside his father so that the old man would not die alone.
Admiration burned in her heart. Or maybe it was something greater. There was no fooling herself. She felt a deep attraction to the man. His touches, his kisses filled her dreams.
Such foolishness. She knelt before the hearth and uncovered the embers. A few light breaths had the coals glowing red. She added kindling and listened to it spark. Love should be like this, starting gently, growing and feeding onto itself until nothing could stop it.
Yet one needed a worthy man to love. Like Jonah Hunter. What a lucky woman his bride would be.
The back door flew open, banging against the wall, startling her. She dropped the stick of maple, and it clattered to the floor.
"I have brought the doctor," Thomas announced as he charged into the room, tearing off his wet, ice-ridden cloak. "Is Father-"
"Still alive," Tessa finished, rising from the floor, the fledging fire forgotten.
She blushed as the surgeon entered the room, a young man come from so far. What must he think? His smart blue gaze studied her fallen hair and her worn and stained garments. Tessa felt heat creep across her face.
Aye, she was no beauty, but what a sight she must look. And deep in her heart she dared to hope Jonah found her attractive? Ashamed, she lowered her gaze.
The men stormed through the room, leaving boot tracks of mud and snow to melt in their hurry. Her work was done now. Sadness filled her. She liked to be needed, yet the doctor would know how best to help the dying man.
Alone in the silent room, Tessa lifted her shawl from the back of the kitchen chair where she'd left it. She prayed the old Colonel Hunter would live. Now, there was nothing more to do but wait.
Should she leave? Ice fell from the black sky as she glanced out the small window, clinging to scratchy limbed trees. The world looked so desolate, as if already mourning this night. Nay, she would stay, as she would with any patient, Jonah Hunter and his effect on her be damned.
Tessa returned to the fireplace and added plenty of wood. She would heat water for tea. Thomas and the surgeon looked frozen through. Then she would wait with the family for the end. Perhaps she could somehow help ease the suffering for the old man.
And in the quiet hours, until they needed her again, Tessa vowed not to think of her future. By this time next week she would be married to Horace Walling, that is, if her grandfather had his way.
Swallowing tears, Tessa reached for the water bucket. Empty, of course. Jonah's cloak hung from a peg by the back door. She slid the fabric over her shoulders, so heavy and finely woven. The wool smelled clean and faintly of a midnight forest, the way he did.
She closed the door with a click. Light glowed from the upstairs window through the sheen of the ice storm. Cold wind whipped through her skirts, and inside she felt as bleak as that breeze.
Jonah's kiss still tingled on her lips, spellbinding. How he'd tasted of passion and teased her with a glimpse of what she could not have. There would be no passionate, tender love in her future. The pain in her heart broke in two and she stepped into the yard.
Ice battered her. She didn't feel it. She could not feel anything at all. She'd lost her dreams, the hopes that kept her alive. It was not an easy situation living with a family who begrudged her presence. At night, so tired she could not sleep, she would wish on the closest star for the one thing that mattered: a family of her own to love and care for. And who would love her in return.
Horace Walling's face blurred in her mind, haggard and narrow-eyed and frightening. Tessa shuddered, her dreams dying one by one.
She knelt before the well, vowing not to cry. But the tears came anyway.
"I brewed some tea," she whispered to Andy, slumped by the fire, face buried in his hands.
The young man looked up, tears in his eyes. Exhaustion and worry saddened his face. Just back from fetching the reverend, he was too troubled to remember to be frightened of her. "I'm much obliged, Mistress Tessa."
" 'Tis just tea." Boiling water was easy work next to the dilemma poor Andy faced. And yet, he could not see what she saw. Could not begin to appreciate that the years he'd already had with his father were a treasure greater than money or a fine home.
Her own father had died when she was a small girl. His face and even the sound of his voice had faded from her memory. But his happiness, the tenderness she'd felt when he cradled her in his lap before the fire and read to her from the great books he brought all the way from England, those memories remained. Faded by time, now they seemed no more than dreams.
No matter how hard her life had been since, Tessa always knew her father loved her. Losing him to a simple injury, aye, it never should have taken his life, changed hers forever. A broken arm wasn't so dangerous, yet there had been no one trained to set bones properly, to apply poultices to help the swelling and the bleeding. No one who knew more than mere home remedies for battling fever.
"My, that smells wonderful," the reverend hinted.
Tessa carried the fine silver tray across the room and held it steady while the silver-haired man poured milk into a steaming cup of tea.
"And biscuits too," he tried to smile.
That wobbly smile made Tessa's heart hurt all the more. She'd seen death more times than she could count and knew the signs, the feel of it in the room. She feared there would be no mercy this night.
"Jonah, you must eat," Thomas' voice boomed. Only the fire crackling in the hearth and ice tapping the glass window dared to make a sound.
"I am not hungry." Jonah did not turn from his place at the foot of his father's bed. Nor did he lift his solemn gaze from the old man's fevered face.
"Starving yourself will not change his condition."
Thomas' eyes warmed, the grief ebbing just enough for Tessa to see the gleam inside-a sight that made her throat close entirely.
Respect. Admiration. Love for his brother. She knew she shouldn't be observing a family's intimate warmth. Tessa ducked her chin as Thomas poured tea from the pot and handed it to Jonah.
There was no way she could get out of the pending marriage. The image of Horace Walling's face swirled before her. Her head spun. Pain cracked in her chest. Tessa set the tray on a small table, blinking hard, surprised such thoughts would intrude here, in this sick room where they did not belong. She had the surgeon to assist and, when he was gone, a patient to tend.
"Tessa." Jonah's hand reached out. Big fingers engulfed hers.
"Y-yes?" Fire from his touch streaked along her skin.
"I ought to thank you for the tea." Grief-darkened eyes that searched hers. "And for your help. 'Tis good to be home again. In a place where neighbors help one another."
She did not want him seeing her with tears in her eyes. She took a step back, and anger speared through her. He was such a stupid man. What did he think? She was here because they were neighbors? "I am not here to help you, Hunter. You are not the reason I am up for the second straight night without sleep."
"Of course not. My father-"
"That is right I am here for your father. For a man who is old and sick and who needs care."
"And I thank you for it."
So, even a man who thought himself heroic was as daft as the rest of them. "Don't you understand?"
"I know nothing of herbs."
"Herbs have naught to do with it." She fisted both hands and vowed not to give him a good smack that might knock some sense into him. "Mayhap you should have stayed home these last years to help your father, and he would not be in bed right now fighting for his life."
"Wait one minute." Danger glinted in his eyes. He strode forward, close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath and the bunched tension in his powerful body. "Are you accusing me-"
"I am saying that some people do not have a father. And they would have gladly stayed and worked a farm alongside him. Just to have him in her life." She blinked hard, biting her lip to keep from saying more. Did she have to let him see her heart?
Jonah only stared at her, his mouth open. A muscle jumped along his jaw. "You dare to judge me?"
"Why not? Some of us stayed." And at a greater cost. "Of course it is more difficult to impress hero-worshipping boys with homey little tales. No one calls a son who stays home a hero. Nor one who makes his ill father's life more comfortable."
"I did not leave home to make myself into a hero. No such animal exists." His hands fisted. Fury gleamed in eyes as dark as night. "I despise the word. Why do you keep saying I am one? Mayhap that is the way you see me?"
"Nay." But it was. Bigger than a man had a right to be, so handsome he could stop the moon from shining. Look at the way her hand still tingled where his fingers had touched her. Her heart thudded fast and hard at his nearness.
"You are the outsider here," he pointed out, "you and your unwanted opinions."
His anger glowed like an ember, changing his face, tangible like radiating heat.
An outsider. She felt as if he'd pared her with a knife and lay open her heart. Pain turned into anger, but she could only stare at him. What could she say? She'd lost the argument to this big, arrogant man who made her feel small and inadequate. Too short Too thin. Too plain. Too disagreeable.
That was the true reason no man had married her, despite her age, despite her circumstance. All those years fighting to keep a roof over her ill mother's head and enduring heartless relatives' scorn had forced a wall so thick around her heart even a marauding Indian could not breach it.
She never once truly resented caring for her mother, or missed too terribly the lost chances for fun other girls her age had enjoyed. But no, her life had not been easy. Maybe if she'd had more patience, or more faith, or more beauty…
But the truth was she'd become an outsider. The kind of woman only Horace Walling would marry.
Tessa ducked her chin and strode from the room.
"You were harsh with her."
Jonah rubbed his brow. His head throbbed with exhaustion; his heart ached with worry. "I know. She just made me angry. Probably because she was right."
"All I know is that she has been tending Father as if he were her own." Thomas paused to study the old man lying so still and the surgeon bleeding him with studious caution. "I don't see anyone else volunteering to stoke fires and change bedding and haul snow up a flight of stairs, then clean up the mess. Do you?"
"Not one of those young females hoping to marry me," Jonah added wryly.
Thomas' eyes crinkled, unable to manage a smile. "Mistress Tessa may be a man's worst nightmare, but I tell you, there is no one else I would rather have with Father right now. She's skilled, and she's got a gentle hand with the infirm."
"Too bad she doesn't have a gentle tongue to match." Jonah studied the tray Tessa had brought. Fresh biscuits and untouched corn pudding. She'd tended them, although no one had asked it of her. "I suppose I just like a woman who's biddable and pleasing."
"I could not agree with you more." Thomas reached for the teapot. "If you make her angry, she will leave. The surgeon says he can stay, but only as long as he can help."
"Aye." Wearily, Jonah sighed, so damn tired he couldn't focus his blurring eyes. "Mayhap I can repair the damage."
Hell, there was so much he couldn't repair. Like his father's illness. It killed him to think the old man was suffering so.
He left the room, his burden greater for having left the bedside. What if his father died while he was away? Jonah hesitated in the dark hallway, blending with the shadows.
A small sound, hardly more than a breath, but he heard it coming from the room farthest away. He strode through the dark, counting the doorways. The last stood ajar and inside he heard a delicate sniff, then silence.
"Tessa?" He gave the door a push.
"Go away." Anger edged her words.
He knew how easy it was to use anger to cover up deeper emotions, how easy to drive others away. "Nay, I have something to say and you have no choice but to listen."
" 'Tis a pity that you haven't changed in nearly twenty-five years, Hunter." A shadow shifted on the edge of the bed, a mere ribbon of shape. "You're still unbearably bossy. 'Tisn't as adorable on a thirty-year-old man."
"I never said I wanted to be adorable." He stepped into the room, blocking the threshold.
"Good thing. You'd fail miserably."
A smile stretched the corner of his mouth, despite the turmoil inside him. "I am sorry for how I treated you. For what I said."
"You are not." A tremble she couldn't hide in her voice. "You're just afraid if you make me too angry I'll refuse to stay and help with your father."
"That was Thomas' concern. He is a shallow, self-serving man. He was too cowardly to come himself."
A little choke. Ah, he'd nearly made her chuckle. "Shallow, self-serving traits run strong in the Hunter family, especially in the eldest son."
"Will you stay?" He had no time for humoring her, even if he genuinely regretted his words. Thoughtless, they were. Hell, he was so damn tired and scared that being angry with her had been easiest. He wasn't proud of himself, but at least he could admit it. And not make the mistake again.
"I would not walk away from anyone in so much need. Is that what you think of me?"
Not anger. Hurt. So, he was not the only one battling a reputation that did not fit. As he was no hero, she was no shrew. Not Tessa with her gentle hands. How many families had she helped over the years? How many had she nursed back from illness and injury? Or sat at a bedside easing the dying one's pain? And many of the good people of Baybrooke could only treat her with distance and shakes of the head?
"Nay. That is not what I think of you. Hell, you have done more for my own father than I have."
"True." He sensed a smile in that whisper-soft voice.
"Then you will accept my apology?" He reached for a match from the bureau. Struck it.
Light brushed over her face as he lit the taper.
"Nay. I would never accept your apology, Hunter. I would never know if it was sincere or not." She lifted her chin. Tears sheened her cheeks.
Jonah felt gut-punched. He had made her cry. He felt lower than dirt. What a clodpated dolt. "Tessa, I-"
"No pretenses." She stood, straightening her rumpled skirts. Candlelight brushed her body, highlighting the curves of her breasts. "You don't care about me. We both know that. Just walk away. Leave me alone. I will wash my face and have some tea and be in to change your father's bedding."
She dismissed him with a wave of her work-rough hand. Dismissed him. As if he were a mere private and she a general.
"I am not pretending, Tessa," he ground out. And then his gaze fell on the soft bow of her mouth.
Heat trembled through him along with the memory of her experienced kiss. Aye, it was enough to drown out the suffocating sadness in his heart.
"Well, neither am I, Hunter. My dislike of you is real."
But there was no venom in her words. A hint of softness, an invitation. "Do you dislike all men, or do you save that passion just for me?"
"I have no passion for you." She dipped her chin, and he could not see her face.
She sounded sad. Tiny tingles of want danced and tempted. He fought the urge to take her in his arms and hold her. Aye, how he remembered the feel of her against him. Heated softness. Willing woman. Even now his eyes appreciated the ample curves of her breasts, soft looking but firm. Heat licked through his blood.
"I meant what I said in there." She rubbed her hands together, red from manual labor so that they looked chapped even in this thin light. "You were lucky enough to have a kind man for a father. Yet you wasted the years you were given with him. What I would give-"
She stopped. He could not argue, could not deny her charge. No matter how angry he wanted to get, she was right. He sighed, fisting his hands. "I cannot change the past, Tessa. Is this what you want me to do?"
"No, I just-" She sniffed.
Hell, she was crying. Big tears that glimmered in the light, even though she bowed her face to hide them. He looked at his hands, so helpless. What did he do? He sensed her tears were genuine, a rare experience for him.
"You have a f-family," she whispered, her slender shoulders shaking within her too-large garment. "What I would give-"
Horace Walling. Jonah hadn't remembered her troubles. The world did not stop because his life was changing. He thought of Horace's rotten teeth and dirty hands. Jonah's stomach soured. "Hasn't your grandfather given you a different choice in a husband?"
"What other choice?" she whispered. "Grandfather has hated the burden I've been to his family. Where would I go? There are no other relatives left alive to take me."
She drew him in like a spell wrapped around his heart. Her voice, did it have to feel as if it touched his skin? The sweetness of it shifted over him like spun sugar. His groin tightened. Hell, what was his lusty body thinking? This was Tessa Bradford. And yet he could not stop wanting to lay her across the bed and bury his aching shaft inside her warm, willing body.
"Grandfather has forbidden me to work for hire." Her eyes shimmered, so wide and inviting. "I know 'tis hard to believe of me, but I have dreams, too. And they do not include sharing a bed with Horace Walling."
Jonah took a step closer, breathless. Her eyes dazzled. Her mouth twisted into a vulnerable frown. An inviting frown that lured him.
Blood throbbed in his groin at the thought of Tessa Bradford naked in his bed.
"Will you tell anyone what I just said?" she asked now, avoiding his gaze as she looked to the stairway.
"Nay."
So, he affected her. Jonah liked the way she ducked her chin, keeping her face from his gaze. She wanted him, he guessed, with the same heated need as he felt for her. Honest and straightforward, the way it should be between a man and a woman. No emotions attached.
He thought of her midnight journey when he'd saved her from the wolves. Only a woman coming from a man's bed would be unescorted in the woods that time of night.
So, she was experienced. Perhaps that was what he needed. Guilt and remorse for the son he'd been threatened to drown him. And watching Father so close to death had been the hardest thing he'd done.
"I should get back to your father's side," she said with that sweet voice that could lure the devil.
"First, you must attend to me." He caught her chin in his hand, his groin heavy in anticipation. If he could bury this pain, it would go away. He felt certain of it. Jonah covered his mouth with hers.
He felt her surprise. At first her mouth was set against him, almost unresponsive. Almost. He closed his eyes, lost in the sweet, consuming fire. So greedy it pulsed through his veins like a storm of wind and flame, fast and intoxicating.
He curled a hand around her neck and tipped her head back to deepen the kiss. On a sigh, she melted into his arms. His blood kicked at the feel of her against him. The soft heat of her breasts seared his chest. The curve of her belly nudged his arousal. Want ripped through his veins. Damn, she was pure temptation, and she was beckoning him beyond all control.
"Your father," she gasped, breaking from his arms.
His breath came hard. Aroused and wanting, he simply stared at her and trembled from deep inside.
"Come quick!" Andy burst into the room.
In a heartbeat, Jonah spun away from Tessa, his need for comfort forgotten. "What is it?"
"Father is conscious," Andy choked.
"Thanks be, he is alive."
"Nay." Andy swallowed, tears spilling down his face. "The doctor says that often before a man dies he has a moment of clarity. Mayhap this is his. Father is asking for you, Jonah."
Nay. Every muscle in his body drew taut, and he could not move. I cannot lose Father so soon. And not this way, not before I keep even this one vow.
Yet he found his feet moving. Tessa forgotten, and Andy at his side. Then he was in Father's room and Thomas laid a hand on his shoulder. Well, he was not alone in his sorrow or his loss.
Together, they would face this. As brothers.
"Jonah." Father held out his hand at the first sound of a step inside the threshold.
If only he could hold back time, change the past, make himself into the man Father wanted. Jonah approached the bed, each step the hardest he'd ever taken.
"Father. I am here." He wrapped his hands tightly around the old man's, powerless to change fate, helpless against the consequences of his own long-ago decisions. "I never should have left you."
"You left home to make me proud," Father whispered, tears bright in his eyes. "And you do me proud now that you are home. Whatever happens, do not forget how very much I love my boys."